Welcome back to our semi-regular weekly feature in which we survey the state of Our National Dialogue, which needs new windows, some paint, and some serious work around the yard.

There was more to the MSNBC Morning Zoo crew today than simply playing host to itinerant zombie-eyed granny-starvers. Squint, the host, and the increasingly inexcusable Mark Halperin, were going on about why people don't seem to warm up to the Romneybot 2.0. It was agreed that, somehow, the really warm and human Willard Romney has disappeared within the Romneybot. His colleagues at Bain Capital, Halperin insisted, are "amazed" at the widely held notion that Romney is a cold enough fish for Mrs. Paul. (And, of course, once you've posed with men holding dollar bills in their mouths, a certain bond does develop.) What seems to have eluded the lads here is that the country has not determined that it will not like Romney because he's unilkable. It has determined that it will not like him because, in addition to being the living embodiment of Richard Pryor's conception of what white people sound like, for going on seven years now, Romney's been traversing the landscape as an unprincipled political 'ho. This is not hard to figure out. It is only a struggle for those people in the pundit world who are trying to do their best to humanize the Romneybot because, otherwise, there might not be a decent campaign this fall.

Later, my man Chuck Todd was talking about a political ad that the Romney people had pulled out of respect for the illness of Rick Santorum's young daughter, and Chuck was wondering if they'd roll it out again now that the campaign has resumed. My man Chuck referred to the ad as a "personal attack ad." Is it really? Is it that far out of bounds during a presidential primary in Pennsylvania to remind Pennsylvanians that, the last time they had a chance to vote for Rick Santorum, they threw him out of office by 17 points? Or that Santorum lost his home county — where, as he endlessly reminds us, he learned his values and where his politics were shaped — by a whopping 30-point margin? (I mean, good god, I didn't know that. That's hilarious.) Is it really a cheap shot to take note of the fact that Pennsylvanians looked at Santorum in 2006 and decided he was a colossal dick, and have I mentioned recently what a colossal dick he is? I'm sorry, but I see nothing wrong with that ad at all, except possibly that crushing Santorum at this point looks like overkill. And, of course, what do you mean "we" fired him, oh, Man Of Many Residences?

Meanwhile, it seems C-Plus Augustus has poked his head out of his hole. (He saw his shadow, which means six more weeks of stupid.) He was speaking at the Bush Institute's inaugural conference on economic growth, and if you think it was easy for me to type that without falling out of my chair in helpless laughter, you're kidding yourselves. I mean, isn't that like reading something about the Hazlewood Foundation's annual conference on marine navigation? Anyway, as we all recall so fondly, it's really all about him:

"I wish they weren't called the Bush tax cuts," the former president said as he kicked off the Bush Institute Conference on Taxes and Economic Growth in New York City. "If they're called some other body's tax cuts, they're probably less likely to be raised."

I say this often: We're all lucky to have survived.

Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Missouri) (UPDATE -- Ooops, sorry, Kansas.) is on the "I said it, but what I really meant was..." fallout tour after going semi-full birther earlier this week:

"In responding to a constituent's question regarding the Obama birth certificate, Congresswoman Hartzler confirmed that this issue has been raised by many 4th District citizens with whom she has spoken," Walsh told POLITICO.

Well, no, what she said was that she "had serious doubts" about the president's bith certificate....

"But I don't know, I haven't seen it. I'm kind of, I'm just at the same place you are on that. You read this, you read that. But I don't understand why he didn't show that right away. I mean, if someone asked for my birth certificate, I'd get my baby book and hand it out and say 'Here it is.'"

That's what birtherism is now — an elbow you throw, after which you look astonished when the referee whistles a foul.

The Demolition Derb continues apace over at National Review where, now that the dust has settled and everybody agrees again that black people are uneducable criminals but what in hell can you do, they can vote now, so you know, whatever, it is the redoubtable Thuycidides of the tree farms who clambers aboard the glory train to redemption most enthusiastically, hauling several of his still-employed NR colleagues aboard along the way.

But Reeve misses the larger point, again, that the promiscuous use of the N-word by anyone only cheapens its currency, even if that is the supposed intent. There was a time not too far in the past when the black community attempted to stop the use of the N-word in rap music, on radio, and in movies for precisely the reason that its reborn ubiquity would insidiously cause it to lose any shock value, and make it more, not less, difficult, to curb its use against blacks, when young black males themselves were using it, and not just as a term of endearment.

Sooner or later, you knew it was going to be the Rap Music that did it.

(Also, VDH? Watch yourself while calling Elspeth Reeve "Someone called Elspeth Reeve." I did that once, and Jonathan Chait jumped ugly on my ass. Just sayin'.)